Family Photos Inspire Murder Mystery Games Writer

I was searching online for what’s trending. I came across a site that had a series of hilarious family photos that make you cringe or shake your head or laugh out loud – or all of the above. We ALL have been in photos just like that. Don’t you dare bother denying it.

As I scrolled through them, I couldn’t help think that I could write a murder mystery game just by using the photos as inspiration.

Here’s an example (click on the image to enlarge):

Can you find the “body”? Hint: Lower right. Creepy right?

Is that the sign of a twisted mind? I dunno. A writer has to get her inspiration from somewhere. For me it’s often a good movie or a true life murder mystery or crime I read about. I have a HUGE binder full of ideas. Inspiration is all around me and clearly is trending right now. Of course the writing is the hard part. It takes me months to write one. Months. Ideas are easy to come by. Creating a murder mystery around them, not so much. The process is tedious – at least for me – because I want it to be a challenging mystery that doesn’t “cheat” my audience by leading them through a mystery full of super fun, love ‘em or hate ‘em suspects and a solid plot only to fall short in the evidience department or the “yeah that makes sense” department. I’m still mad at Dan Brown for sucking me into the DaVinci Code only to have me throw the book down in disgust when whatshisface jumped out of a helicopter, plunged into the Hudson River and still had a crucial piece of evidence in his suit jacket pocket. NO WAY! Made me very, very cranky, let me tell you. (I’m giving him another chance by reading Deception Point. Is that a dumb thing to do? So far, I’m skeptical that the 3 lead characters can survive what they’ve survived so far and I’m only half way through the book.)

Those family photos made me realize that I have more inspiration for writing a murder mystery game than I know what to do with. Now if I would just focus on writing one even though it will take me months…